Friday, August 24, 2007

Anyone Watch "Mike and Mike" On Friday?

Just wondering if anyone had an opportunity to watch the "Mike and Mike In The Morning Show" on ESPN2 or listen to it on ESPN radio Friday morning?

With NASCAR Now taking a day off for the Bristol night Busch Race, host Erik Kuselias filled-in for Mike Greenberg. It certainly was interesting to see Kuselias try to operate on-the-air with Mr. Golic, one of the founders of the program.

At one point, Golic had him so flustered Kuselias actually said to him "when I am in charge of flying this plane, its going to be a smooth ride!" This after Golic interrupted Kuselias on purpose several times just to ruffle his feathers.

Between the phone calls and the emails, I know lots of you saw or listened to this program. I would be interested to know how you feel about someone who never discussed, mentioned, or even referenced the huge NASCAR racing weekend for ESPN.

Having never met or spoken with this man, I would be interested in your thoughts. Please try your best to tie them into NASCAR on ESPN and the daily NASCAR Now program. Thanks again.

23 comments:

I tuned in just in time to catch them having a deep sports-related discussion about............changing baby diapers and eating Big Mac's!!!

Klulesas did manage to give a fairly enthusiastic promo for the Saturday night Cup race at Bristol during the "Forward Thinking" segment of the show at about 9:50.

He then went on to plug NASCAR Now's two scheduled showings on Saturday, and mentioned that it's also a daily show airing on weekday evenings. Golic then assumed it was on tonight (Friday night), and Klulesas was forced to say that it wouldn't be on tonight because of "The Little League World Series and other stuff".

I'm still wondering if NASCAR Now ran on Thursday night. If it did, then I was never able to find it. If it didn't, then I'd like to know how a DAILY NASCAR show gets away with taking two days off in a row. Were they afraid they might have to show some Truck Series highlights, or was it just because of "The Little League World Series and other stuff"???

If the Little league World series is so important then why don't we get to see the chili bowl, world of outlaws, silver crown series, hell, how about Legends racing at Lowes or other tracks? How about some go-cart racing?It's a stick and ball world in Connecticut.

Well, now I'm really confused! I just looked at ESPN's schedule for the rest of the day, and there aren't any Little League baseball games listed. I know I heard Klulesas mention the LLWS as a specific reason for the absence of NN. Maybe that was the reason (excuse) that there was no NN on Thursday night???

Tonight, "College Football Live" is airing from 6-7pm on ESPN2. I guess early season college football is more important to ESPN than NASCAR is. I don't see why NN has to take the night off simply because ESPN is covering the Busch Series race at Bristol tonight. They always air an episode of NN before the cup races on Sundays, so why not before a Busch race on a Friday night???

So let me get this straight. You people think NN is a terrible show that the host makes unwatchable, and now you are complaining that it isn't on? Those two things seem to be at odds with each other.

I understand that ESPN is brutal with it's programming, but by reading peoples comments (including JD's), it's almost as if you think NASCAR is the only entity ESPN pays to broadcast. You do realize thay paid over a billion dollars to have monday night football, right?

I want ESPN to improve NASCAR Now. If that requires the departure of EK, then so be it!

I expect a "daily" NASCAR show to run DAILY. Missing two days in a row when there's plenty of NASCAR news and highlights to be covered is UNACCEPTABLE. Ignoring a certain NASCAR series because it airs on another network is UNACCEPTABLE. If it's true that ESPN has secured the rights from NASCAR to run the only daily NASCAR news program, then they have an obligation to fulfill. In my humble opinion they are not holding up their end of the bargain.

ESPN obviously has agreements with many different sports entities, nobody is disputing that. All we're looking for is some balance between stick-and-ball and NASCAR.

Is NASCAR typically discussed on the Mike and Mike show? I don't get to listen or watch generally, so just wondering if this is another chance to take a shot at EK or if it's a subject that Mike and Mike would not discuss anyway.

I don't watch M&M very often, but from what I've seen, they don't talk about motorsports on a regular basis. I think the point here is that EK seems much more at home in the stick-n-ball environment of M&M than he does in the NASCAR Now studio.

I hope nobody gets the impression that I'm taking gratuitous "shots" at EK and ESPN here. Check out some of my comments in the other threads over the last week. I've directed plenty of criticism towards SPEED as well!!!

"rh," I expect ESPN to give NASCAR the same respectful treatment it gives other sports.

Currently, ESPN does not do this.

No one expects ESPN to be all-NASCAR, all the time, but we DO expect it to cover the sport as well and with as well-qualified staff as it does for stick-and-ball sports. That would include a competent host for its (alleged) daily NASCAR show.

If ESPN treated NFL coverage as shoddily as it does NASCAR, fans would be livid, and rightfully so.

If the network's admitting it can't do the job or doesn't want to do the job or doesn't have room on its 276 ESPN channels to do the job, then it needs to cancel its contract with NASCAR and let another network take over.

Every week Mike & Mike has a brief scripted "NASCAR preview" reading presented by some sponsor but other than that it's usually not a topic of discussion any time other than the Monday after the Daytona 500.

One other time Erik Kuselius sat in as a host, the other co-host (I don't remember if it was Golic or another replacement) brought up NASCAR to Erik and asked what was going on this weekend since he's the "NASCAR guy" now and his response was comical. It was right before Talladega, and he responded by saying there could be a wild scene if Jeff Gordon wins because he would break Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s win record (yes, he said Junior multiple times, when obviously it was Dale Sr. whose record was going to be broken). He previewed chicken bones and beer cans being thrown at Gordon's car if he won on Sunday, and then gave an unscripted plug for NASCAR Now, in which he gave the wrong starting time, only to correct his mistake later in the show.

Clearly he's a radio DJ that's getting thrown into doing a TV show about a sport he knows nothing about, just like the legendary Doug Banks, who I believe came from a similar radio background. Once ESPN dumped Banks they replaced him with Ryan Burr, who is normally a Sportscenter / ESPNNEWS anchor who has extensive TV experience. Burr does a commendable job with the show because he's an experienced TV show host and knows how to run a broadcast even if he's unfamiliar with the show's topic, but it would still be better to see a NASCAR guy like Allen Bestwick or Mike Massaro hosting the show.

ESPN is clearly using NASCAR Now as a "throw away" show to give a bunch of radio guys their first TV experience, which is very insulting to NASCAR fans.

I think it is going a little overboard to expect NASCAR Now to be on TV every day of the week. ESPN and ESPN2 air tons of live sports so sometimes these live events cause the pre-emption of shows like Around the Horn, PTI, Baseball Tonight, and even Sportscenter.

NASCAR Now does need a credible NASCAR person to host the show, and the way they treat NASCAR fans on Fridays and Saturdays when they buy the exclusive rights to practice sessions and then leave them untelevised is awful, but expecting a "magazine show" like NASCAR Now to be aired every night of the week no matter what else is going on in sports is taking things to an extreme. Would it be nice? Certainly, but that's impractical for a network that has rights to live coverage of a lot of different sports.

Please do not even compare the NFL and NASCAR.They are not even in the same universe. This country is way over the top with the NFL and ESPN is just feeding that monster. If you expect the same coverage for Nascar as the NFL you are going to lead a very unhappy life. It isn't going to happen.

For those of you who think they have more knowledgable people on the other shows than NN, try watching some of the NFL shows. Some of those guys are just as brutal as the NN host.

The only sport that gets more coverage than Nascar on ESPN is the NFL.

Fortunately the Butcher of NASCAR has such a definitive voice that it seldom takes more than 2 minutes to recognize it and turn the station - as I did this morning. He, and increasingly ESPN, has no credibility so there is no reason to waste time on listening to him. If ESPN is willing to put its daily show for a high profile property in the hands of a host who doesn't know and seems proud of not caring, what does that say about ESPN's credibility for what it alleges to be news?

I love watching Mike and Mike, but even more so around 9:50 on Friday mornings when Erik is hosting. It seems as if most in the ESPN staff do not like him, as Buster Olney and Josh Elliott have questioned his expertise on different shows. The funny thing is, when Buster and Josh co-hosted, they talked more about NASCAR and how a pair of stick-and-ball guys are getting interested than Erik ever has on the show.

I agree that it might be a little much to expect NN to air every single day of the week, but taking two days off in a row is a little different.

They've missed plenty of days here and there the whole year, and it's never been a big issue. The problem here is that they took two days off in a row. Not just any two days, but the two days leading up to two of the most exciting races of the year. Call me crazy, but I think this is deplorable.

First, they ignore a very important CTS race on Wednesday's show, then they inexplicably disappear on Thursday, and then there's no show at all scheduled for Friday, either before or after their own Busch race!

Come on now, I can't believe this is what NASCAR had in mind when they sold these rights to ESPN...

You think NASCAR has a comparable audience to the NFL. You need to pay more attention to the sports landscape in this country. It's not even close. I'm not a real big NFL fan, but it is reality. The audience and interest in the NFL destroys all other sports.